March 2005
April 26, 2005
this, that, the other
Certifiable:Friday I passed my Cisco Certified Network Associate exam. To some who are engaged in networks and computer stuff this is a big deal. To others who are engaged in networks and computer stuff and to most everybody else it isn't. I feel kind of ambivalent about it, in the way I feel ambivalent about most things. It feels good to have done it and have it behind me but I don't know what real value it has.I am totally committed to education and learning and feel that tests can be a great learning tool. They can help focus attention on the important things a person needs to know. "These are the things a competent network administrator needs to know. If you don't know them you really need to learn them." But the approach of those HUGE corporations administering the certification exams is "Let's create a revenue stream for ourselves where we have some vague goals of what people should know about our products but reflect little acutal real world skills. We'll publish and sell books with tons of information which may or may not be testable. We'll make people take exams at a hundred bucks a pop they are certain to fail the first time and maybe the second. Then we'll make the certifications valid for only a year so they have to retest and purchase more study materials from us, putting money into our greedy pockets." So now I'm off to study for my next certification.Bush is a moron:Bush is a moron. Let's be social:The whole point of Social Security is a safety net for people in their golden years. It is not about individual ownership and private control of your money. It is a system to protect those Americans when individual ownership and control of money fail and leave them with not enough to survive. But private accounts do not solve the problem facing Social Security.Solvency is the issue. Not enough money coming in to pay for what will be going out. Private accounts do not solve this. Private accounts do not solve this, Mr. President. You asked for solutions from both parties and you said you will listen to good ideas. The best idea is to remove the cap on the Social Security contributions above $87,900. People who earn more then this amount, $100,000.00, $1 million, $100 million, pay the same as those who earn $87,900. Remove the cap and make everyone pay the same rate. Problem of solvency solved. "But that's not fair for those higher income people. They are paying into a system they will not benefit from proportionally." That's the way taxes work. Cost of living in America and being able to exploit others to make your fortune.Leave the child behind:When Bush talks about education in America and leaving no child behind, he always mentions "reading, writing, adding and subtracting". This may be the limit of what the president learned in school but it is not enough if America is to compete in the global economy. One more thing about Bush:Bush is a moron.Don't Kill your Television:"Lost" is the best show on T.V. Well, maybe "Deadwood" is. They are both great shows. Gripping dramas centered on human characters with faults, failing and foibles, especially "Deadwood" where they use lots of F-words. As much as I like "Lost" I am not certain that the ending will live up to the first act. I fear the show's creator will cheat and cop out on the end or worse drag out the show into five seasons that water down what makes it so great. "Deadwood" being on HBO will more than likely just end when it needs to end. HBO would never string along a show's fans, promising a finale only to deliver a cliffhanger until next season. Oh wait. "Carnivale". Damn.Long Vowell:I just finished reading Sarah Vowell's book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot. I wouldn't so much say that I loved it as I would say I could relate to almost every single word she writes. She's in her mid 30s. I'm in my mid 30s. She lived in Oklahoma growing up. Me too. She was in marching band. Same here. She studies German and knows a song about which prepositions take the accusative case. Ditto. She loves movies, was forced by her parents to get a job at age 13, doubts the existence of god and loves American history. My story. Ways I am not like Sarah Vowell: she has a twin, she is a music-phile far greater than I could ever be, she contributed her voice talents to "The Incredibles". She cried when Kurt Cobain killed himself. When I heard about it I probably thought, "Is he the blond guy who sang in the 'Heart-Shaped Box' video?" I do get sad when I think about Phil Hartman not being alive any more. In Heat:I know I said "Lost" is my favorite show but there was no way I was going watch the "SPECIAL" last night which recapped the previous episodes. Well, I would have watched it but I saw that PBS had a cooking show I was looking forward to. The show is called "Cooking Under Fire" and it stars two people I admire greatly, Michael Ruhlman and Ming Tsai. Ruhlman is an author of such books as The Making of a Chef and co-author of Thomas Keller's great coffe table cookbooks. Tsai is the innovative chef of FoodTV's "East Meets West". The show is also hosted by Todd English. Him, I'm not so crazy about.CUF is basically The Apprentice for young chefs. They are searching for America's next top chef. Twelve cooks have been selected and one will be eliminated each week until one remains. That chef will get a job in one of Todd English's restaurants. wow. I'm a little confused. Won't America's next top chef prove herself or himself by being America's next top chef? Isn't the path to chef greatness in the day-to-day fire of restaurant lines, turning out exceptional food that people come back for? Won't the cream rise to the top on its own? It's like having a competition for young baseball players to find the next major league star. They already have such a competition. It's called the minor leagues. Talent gets noticed. Talent gets promoted.And the winner wins a position at a restaurant owned by an over-rated celebrity chef who had one of his restaurants in Boston closed by the health department. Oh, the joy. Also at the beginning of the competition the chefs were given a gift. A chef's knife. wow. That's like giving a young dentist a toothbrush. I think they might already have one at this stage of the game.Anyways, this is probably the last time I'll watch since four new episodes of Lost are promised for the next few Wednesdays and I won't miss those. Don't get me started on the antiquated network TV notion of showing a show once and if you miss it, tough.Antiquated Network TV:Ok, I got started. The idea of competitive TV programming needs to die and soon. Showing a program at a set time once a week is so 1987. We have cable. We have satellites. We have Tivos and PVRs. Learn the lesson of "cable" or non-network channels: repeat popular shows throughout the week. I don't care if you show it again at 2:00 in the a.m. I will record. Just don't make me choose between two show I really want to watch. One will lose.Teen God:A new poll shows that 83% of American teens believe in God. Another poll shows that 85% of male dogs lift their legs when the pee and 93% of dogs sniff other dogs butts. Ninety-six percent of geese fly South for the winter.